Demon Lord: Erotic Adventure in Another World-Chapter 505: Zar’Kaleth: Descent into the Hollow Hall

The black citadel welcomed them without resistance.

That alone put them on edge.

All semblance of snow vanished, thawed and melted into a warm steam.

No magic stirred. No guardians rose. The colossal obsidian doors parted without command, exhaling a breath of cold, stale air that smelled not of decay, but age.

The scent of something ancient, sealed too long.

Asmodeus was the first to step inside.

His boots tapped stone that once glittered with frost. Now, the crystals that fed the Demon Empress's power lay shattered across the floor, hollow and pale, like dead stars.

The others followed—silent.

Levia limped slightly, her armour barely held together. Vinea stayed close, hand on her blade. Lumina's new form glimmered faintly, eyes flicking between the archways above, alert. Asmodea hummed, low and tuneless, as if trying to break the pressure building around them.

Thanks to meeting their mother, the mood became lighter and more confident.

The deeper they walked, the darker it became.

The halls grew narrower. Not physically, but in presence. The walls seemed to lean inward, old murals warping with every step, as though the memories of the place were alive but unable to speak.

No voices.

No wind.

Only the throb of distant silence.

Paintings lined the corridor—some defaced, others untouched. All depicted rulers of ages past. Demon Kings and Queens, their forms half-erased by time or malice.

Some bore deliberate scars — claw marks, burn trails, gashes made by desperate hands or worse. Others had faded naturally, as if the walls themselves had forgotten who they were meant to honour.

But the eyes of each portrait lingered.

Watching.

Asmodeus's steps echoed through the corridor with a rhythm too clean. Too exact. The sound of heels on stone did not fade behind him, as if someone — or something — walked just slightly out of sync.

No wind passed through this place.

No frost touched their skin.

Yet the cold was deep. A weight pressing against their bones from within.

"This is wrong," Lumina whispered, eight red eyes narrowed as her silken limbs crawled faintly along the corridor's arches above them. "This castle was built around the throne of the first Demon King… but these halls feel older."

"Older than the Demon Kings?" Vinea asked, voice flat.

Asmodea ran her fingers across one of the ruined murals, brushing dust from an image of a slender demoness with long, white hair. "Some of these paintings are… too lifelike. This one's eyes shimmered just now."

Levia grunted, her shield already lifted onto her back. "It's too eerie."

"No," Asmodeus said calmly.

They reached an intersection.

Two great stone archways yawned in opposite directions, splitting the corridor ahead into a fork. The left side opened into what looked like a collapsed ballroom—pillars snapped in half, glass embedded in the floor like broken constellations.

The right side led into darkness. Smooth. Unbroken. Carved deep into the stone like a forgotten artery.

The women hesitated.

The darkness did not.

It welcomed.

Asmodeus didn't hesitate. He turned right.

The others followed.

No torches lit the passage.

But somehow, they could still see.

Not with their eyes—but with something deeper.

The runes beneath the floor glowed as they stepped, like old blood vessels remembering how to carry life. Faint pulses of pale blue etched the way forward, dimming the moment their feet passed over them, like a heartbeat slipping into silence.

"Can you hear it?" Levia whispered.

"Hear what?" Asmodea asked.

"The breathing," Levia murmured. "The walls are breathing."

No one laughed.

No one denied it.

Because they all felt it now — the soft, slow rise and fall of something vast, something sleeping... or pretending to.

A presence too large to be called one being. Too familiar to be called a god.

It was not waiting for them.

It had always been here.

And they were the ones who had taken too long to arrive.

They stepped into the throne chamber.

Wide. Deep. Silent.

The walls were high, but not decorated. Black stone, smooth and unbroken, formed a dome overhead that pressed inward like a sealed tomb. No banners. No tapestries. Only silence.

At the far end, atop a raised dais of broken steps, the throne stood.

And it was occupied.

A man sat on the throne, unmoving and quiet.

He was tall, with broad shoulders and wore a thick, fur-lined cloak over his shoulders, in an ink black and deep blue colour.

His legs were spread, one elbow resting against the armrest, the other hand lazily gripping the hilt of a massive polearm — a glaive with a jagged, obsidian blade that scraped the stone beside his feet.

His hair was black, slicked back, but not clean. Not regal. His jaw was sharp, his mouth thin. No helmet. No crown. Just an unshaven face, cold eyes, and the weight of someone who had long since stopped needing

He watched them.

From the moment they entered.

He never blinked.

Never moved.

Just watched.

Asmodeus stopped halfway across the hall.

The others followed, instinct slowing their steps.

Asmodeus's voice dropped to a whisper because he recognised the person facing them.

"Mephisto."

Mephisto—the god of death.

The man on the throne didn't rise.

He just tilted his head, very slightly. Then spoke.

His voice wasn't deep.

It was low. Dry. Like gravel dragged across a frozen grave.

"So you're the one who broke her. I guess it was to be expected."

Riel still slept in the arms of Asmodeus, but the moment he noticed Mephisto, he placed her in Levia's arms and whispered. "Leave, you must flee. All of you!"

The man's eyes shifted, scanning the four women behind him. One by one.

Vinea. Levia. Lumina. Asmodea.

Disinterest. Calculation. No fear.

"I expected more."

Then he leaned back slowly, metal scratching faintly under his boots.

"What are you doing in the mortal realm!?"

"Hm? Oh..." Mephisto's lips curled into a cruel smirk. Almost mocking Asmodeus. "Because a goddess betrayed the natural order, and created an abomination... The gods chose someone to grant divine punishment to him."

He watched Asmodeus with a sneer. "She begged me not to kill you, hahaha." Mephisto's twisted laugh echoed. "But.. to think that bitch let a filthy demons seed dirty her body. The slut."

He stood.

The glaive moved with him.

Six and a half feet of tempered steel and serrated black teeth.

"But I was the first."

The chamber darkened. No spell. Just shadow pressing in.

"I was the first one she gave a name."

His cloak fell away, revealing black armour engraved with the same runes that pulsed across the floor. It shimmered like frozen ink, reacting to his movement. At his chest, a symbol burned dull blue — a half-finished sigil.

Incomplete.

"While you played at king with your whores," he said, voice dry as dust, "I served the true Empress. I was the one who held the line when you weren't even a sperm in your father's testicles!"

He planted the glaive beside the throne and cracked his neck once.

"You think you're her chosen?"

He took one step forward.

"She never needed you."

Two more.

"You never understood her."

Then he smiled — cold, not amused, not crazed.

Just cruel.

"She made me to kill you."

Asmodeus finally stepped forward.

"Then come and fail."

Asmodeus didn't blink.

He stepped forward, slow and controlled, boots crunching softly against the stone. The sound didn't echo.

His axe materialised in a flicker of shadow behind him — massive, double-headed, blackened steel with a crimson edge that glowed like it remembered fire. He didn't carry it over his shoulder. He let it drag — the teeth of its head scraping sparks as it carved a shallow trail across the floor.

The man on the throne watched him descend with that same half-lidded glare, like a butcher eyeing meat that had spoiled just slightly.

Behind Asmodeus, the others tensed.

Levia reached for her shield instinctively.

Vinea took half a step forward, then froze.

Asmodea muttered something under her breath. A prayer. Or a curse.

"Do not follow me, you must run." He whispered once again, his skin tingling from the sheer strength of the monster before him.

Only Lumina remained still. Her eight red eyes narrowed, sensing something old moving beneath the floor—something she couldn't name.

Asmodeus reached the centre of the chamber.

Stopped.

The man — the First — tapped the bottom of his glaive once against the steps. A soft clang. Then spread his arms, just slightly.

"Well?" he asked. "Let's see what you're made of."

Asmodeus raised his axe.

And pointed.

"You're not even worth the throne you sit on."

Mephisto, the source of many hardships... the enemy in the dark, his presence the last card stopping Asmodeus from finding peace.

The man's lips curled into a sneer.

"Then take it from me."

Mephisto snapped his fingers as dozens of priests wearing white robes and the emblem of death appeared, causing Asmodeus to shout.

"Coward!"

"Hmph!"

Their weapons lifted.

The air buckled.

The walls groaned.

The fight hadn't started yet, but the chamber violently shook as if it knew how it would end.